How to Make Freezer Meals the Easy Way

I don’t like cooking at all. Unfortunately the my large family and economic reality means I spend a lot of time cooking. We can’t afford many convinence foods and I really like to avoid them for health reasons anyway.

We have been out of freezer meals for months and this has really added stress to my life. When unexpected events arise (and believe me, plenty arise in a family our size) I need to have quick meals on hand. Over the years I have come up with an easy method to make freezer meals. Here is how I managed to get 21 meals in my freezer in the last three weeks.

With Chuck’s current job he gets paid every two weeks. We spend $1,200 per month to feed our family of 12 (you can read more about that here). We put $600 from every paycheck into an envelope for groceries. Three weeks ago I knew I had to get some freezer meals prepared. I was hoping for some extra money, but that just didn’t work with our budget. This meant I had our usual $600 and needed to feed us for two weeks and get freezer meals prepared. I searched my Pinterest boards and my recipes for inspiration and assembled my grocery list. After my shopping trip, I was able to assemble and freeze: Ham and Broccoli Bake (x3), Lasagna (x3), Sweet Asian Chicken (x2), Crockpot Peanut Chicken (x2), Spicy Red Beans (x2) and Chicken Gumbo (x2). Because I didn’t have any extra money in the budget week two of the pay cycle we ate freezer meals (one of each).

So what’s my easy secret to assembling all of these freezer meals? I do it as soon as I get home from the store, while we are putting our groceries away.Three weeks ago I returned home from the grocery store and:

1. Immediately cooked all four pounds of pasta for the Ham Broccoli Bake. While the pasta was cooking I cubed the ham and chopped the broccoli. As soon as the pasta was cooked, I assembled three meals worth of Ham Broccoli Bake.

2. Once those were done, I assembled three pans of lasagna. You do not need to pre-cook the noodles, simply add a layer of sauce to the bottom of the lasagna pan. Layer: sauce, pasta, cheese mixture and meat. Easy!

3. I used a second burner on the stove to cook beans. You do not need to soak beans overnight! Simply add an extra hour of boiling. I put Tucker to work chopping the three pounds of sausage that were going into the Spicy Red Beads and Chicken Gumbo.

4. I placed two whole chickens in the crockpot for the Chicken Gumbo. I had the kids chop celery, carrots and pepper for the gumbo.

The next day I sent Judah and Tilly to the grocery store to buy fresh boneless, skinless chicken breasts. As soon as they arrived home I assembled the Crockpot Peanut Chicken and Sweet Asian Chicken into freezer bags. I also assembled the Chicken Gumbo. In about 4 hours (including clean-up) I had 21 meals in my freezer!

Oh, Bless you for this post! We have a baby coming in a few weeks and I am out of ideas for getting meals made ahead. I do not want to leave my room for two weeks after the birth so putting dinners into the freezer is essential to my mental health. Last time I had a baby I threw my own baby shower and invited ladies over for a day of cooking. That worked wonderfully well and we made a month’s worth of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. But this time it’s just my three biggest girls and I and I despaired over how to get it all done on our own. I will be trying out many of these recipes this week.

I don’t do a lot of freezer cooking because I have limited freezer space, my biggest time saver is to cook all of my chicken and beef and freeze it in zip top bags. That means that I can prepare most meals in about 30 min. I recently made a casserole that ALL of my kids loved (a rarity, there’s always one…), it might do well as a freezer meal.

WOW! I’m not up to speed–reading all this makes me hungry. I do make and freeze muffins. Also I freeze pesto sauce, and then make tortellini and put the pesto sauce in the microwave . . . that’s my one real freezer meal so far, but you really inspire me.

We eat very well and for much less. My children are also very big eaters. They can each eat five chicken breasts. I stopped buying boneless skinless chicken breasts a long time ago. You can cut your own for a lot less. I also cook from scratch. The key to reducing your grocery bills is to buy what is on sale every week. By the time the month is over, all the meats would have been on sale. Put one month aside to change the way you shop. If whole chickens are on sale, buy six of them. Cut them up. You’ll get a lot of chicken cutlets out of them. Cut the dark meat for casseroles or chicken salad sandwiches. Use the skins and bones for soups. Make chicken stock too. Freeze the chicken stock for recipes calling for chicken broth. When potatoes are on sale, buy a lot and freeze stuffed potatoes or twice baked potatoes. Stuffed peppers when peppers are on sale. Those also freeze well. Make a lot of homemade gravy when you make pot roast and freeze the gravy for use with another meal. I could do 12 people on $800 a month. I don’t cut coupons. You could put one of the kids in charge of coupons and save even more. If you put one month aside, you will have all your meats and other foods for four weeks of meals, and you bought it all on sale. Then you start all over again the next month.